Lately Doonesbury’s story line is about the willingness of the Iraqi Army to participate in the fight, and I think he’s pretty much dead on showing how this happens. This post tries to explain a bit why it happens.
I have written that in order to succeed in Iraq, we need a military governor. We need the governor in order to impose some discipline and accountability. The lack thereof is nicely shown in Doonesbury’s recent comics.
The Iraqis have two things working against them, from the perspective of a western democracy. I’m not judging the Iraqi culture, but just saying that from an American perspective it has some obstacles to achieving the goals of a stable society.
One, honor, and two, fatalism. Honor is paramount to an Iraqi. They will never say no to you because it will dishonor you. If they say yes it may or may not mean yes. They dishonor themselves if they cannot achieve what they commit to, so they refuse to really commit. Likewise, they are reluctant to hold their people accountable because punishing someone for failing will dishonor them. These are not universals, they are tendencies. They would be strongest among family, then clan, then tribe, and would weaken as the connection diminished.
If an Iraqi at a check point has someone he knows come through, he is likely to wave the person through rather than search. Stopping and searching would imply a lack of trust, and would dishonor the driver.
Fatalism, embodied in the phrase insh’allah (or however you want to spell it), means that the Iraqis don’t really commit to something. “I’ll see you tomorrow at 9 AM, insh’allah (god willing).” If the guy doesn’t make it at 9 AM, well, god didn’t want it to happen, it’s not his fault.
Now combine the two. “I didn’t arrive on time because god didn’t will it, so why punish me and dishonor me for something I had no control over?”
Yes, this is a simplification, but I think it sheds some light on why the Iraqi’s aren’t “standing up,” and why nothing seems to get done to stop the deteriorating security situation.
1 comment:
Well said and exactly right. I too have found this Doonesbury story line to be very accurate. In my opinion, his work may be the best and most articulate assessment of the most critical events in Iraq. That is, with the possible exceptions of the blog pieces captured at his Sandbox site.
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